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Name: Natalie Jane Imbruglia Natalie was born in a little coastal town, Berkleyvale in the state of New South Wales in Australia. Natalie has Italian blood in her veins, her father is from Italy, hence the name Imbruglia, her mother however is from Australia. Natalie was the oldest child in that family, she has three younger sisters. Her family was a "non-showbis" family apart from her father's singing in a band called "The Birds And The Bees". Everyone in the coastal town of Berkleyvale surfed, and one summer Natalie and her friends wanted to be on the same camp as the surfer-boys. They borrowed wetsuits and joined the surfer's survival course, but Natalie did not do very well. As a little child, she wanted to be a hairdresser on weekdays and a star during the weekends. She says that at the age of two, she had already begun to dance. When Natalie was thirteen, she began to sing after having signed up for an "extra-curricular performance school" on Queensland's Gold Coast. Natalie had been asking her parents for years to take singing lessons, but it was only after her teachers almost ordered it that they signed her up. After the course finished she moved back home to Berkleyvale
and when she was 15 she moved to Sydney to attend an acting school. That,
however, didn't last long, only 6 months. "I Couldn't stand the getting
up early. I just wanted to audition full-time. I was just sick of school and
wanted to be working. Always in a hurry." She says.
Natalie's first big breakthrough came when she was 16. She was "the
Pineapple Princess" in a Japanese chewing-gum advertisement, and dyed
her hair black to look more like a Hawaiian girl. She recorded 3 more
advertisements before trying out for a two-week role i Neighbours. She got
the role as Beth, her character quickly became popular and it ended up being
two years in Neighbours instead of two weeks. At the start, everything was
wonderful, work, money and fame. "When you are 17 and someone offer you
a part as that you jump at it." But there is some kind of stigma about
being in a soap-opera which Natalie found hard to handle, and the whole thing
wasn't just fun and games. "I didn't have any income for a long time. My
profile dropped off and my bank balance, too, and that was the best thing that
ever happened to me. I was forced to struggle, which is a normal healthy part
of growing up. I hadn't gone through that. I'd never had budget for anything.
I probably needed a good kick up the butt cos I was a bit arrogant. It was
hard and humbling but I'm glad it happened to me. "I knew this time I
had to work for success."
In 1994 she had had enough of life as a soap-star and moved to London.
Her reception in London was warm, since Neighbours was more popular in England
than in Australia. In the beginning, Natalie was invited to all the Gala-nights
and parties, " So i actually got treaded probably to well", she says.
But as time passed, her popularity decreased, "but i think as time went on
and i guess my profile died down, and i stooped got invaded to all this party's
and i released these people weren't necessarily all my friends. That's when i
relay felt lone in London and when i started to write."
Natalie didn't know if she could write songs and was afraid that everyone
would laugh at her. She thought it over and said to herself, "Forget
about what you've done and go back to basics. Ask yourself what you want to
be. I wanted to write songs." To begin with she wrote the lyrics first
and then added the music, but she found this very difficult. These days she
writes the music first and let the word come. "I've found a way of doing
it in which the music inspires the words". About this time Natalie met
Anne Barret in a bar. They quickly became best friends and nowadays Anne is
Natalie's manager. They worked together on a demo in 6-8 mouths and got
together 3 or 4 songs which they took to the RCA and got a contract.
Then Natalie went to the USA and got to meet Mark Goldenburg, whom she
admired, through some friends of hers'. In one week they wrote two songs
("Big Mistake" and "Pigeons And Crumbs"). She also wrote
songs with, among others, Mark Plati ("Don't You Think?",
"Why" and "Impressed" ) and Matt Bronleewee
("Smoke"). "Being such a new artist, there was so much room
for growth that it seemed silly to stick with one person. I was eager to
experiment. I was very interested in what they had to offer." She does
not like albums where all the songs sound the same, everyone she has worked
with have very different personalities, she says. Natalie also says that she
can't write happy songs, but would like to be able to do so, and admires those
who can.
Her work with several different songwriters has corrected her terrible taste
in music, she says, and claims that an examination of her collection would be
shocking, and that she once nearly panicked when she was going to be
interviewed at home and she realised that the journalist was sure to make
unpleasant comments about the collection.
Natalie's first released single was "Torn", the reason for it's
being the first was that it appealed to all different groups, something that
Natalie did not know if the other could do. There has been a lot talk and
writing about who wrote it and who performed the song first. Strange, since
Natalie has never claimed that she had recorded it first or that she wrote it.
On the cover it is clearly stated that it is written by Phil Thornalley. "
Torn" has earlier been recorded by the Danish Lis Sörensen (please excuse
the spelling if incorrect) and the Norwegian Trine Rein. Four different singles
with Natalie version of "Torn" have been released, other songs on
these singles are: "Sometimes", "Contradictions", "
Diving In The Deep End" and "Frightened Child".
After that the album "Left Of The Middle" was released, which
contains 12 songs, 10 of them are written by Natalie.
During the end of 1997, Natalie worked with trying to find a band for live
concerts. The band became organised around new year 97/98 and Natalie was on
tour from January and was in Sweden on her 23rd birthday, the reason was a
concert at the "Studion" in Stockholm. Natalie likes Sweden and
find all the snow beautiful. In February/March she continues to Asia on tour
and in March was she on a short visit to her homeland. Natalie continued her
tour in Japan and USA and recorded the video "Wishing I Was There"
i New York.
Natalie's latest singles which have been released are "Big Mistake",
"Wishing I Was There" and "Smoke".
Natalie is probably single for the moment, but who knows? She prefers
staying home, drinking black coffee and writing letters to her friends than
going out. "I don't tend to get out much now". Instead she enjoys
the peace and quiet.
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